And We Are Dreaming
by Ofi
Summary: Merlin has come to visit again, but those visits no longer bring the warmth they once did to a woman trapped underneath a lake. [The Once and Future King]


A/N: I find it wildy hilarious that the first thing I've uploaded in months has nothing to do with anime or manga... And yet this piece has become important to me in the one day it took to write it. I started this when I was a junior in highschool but never got past the first paragraph, oddly enough today sitting in Math Concepts I remembered it and started over. The concept is much like what I had originally planned for it, but I had never thought of an ending. I enjoy the one I gave it though.

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**And We Are Dreaming**

Merlin's come to visit again.

Merlin with his stories of a world outside my watery prison. He comes bearing his boons and gifts- rays of sunshine, shootings stars, pieces of distant moons. Merlin's come with his smiles full of the apologies I commanded he never give to me. Merlin, who is in and of himself the reminder of everything that was and what everything became. Merlin's company, however, always comes at a price.

He appears in the flash of a warm glow, the one that never fails to remind me of another time. I think of green grass that bends comfortably underneath me, bright sunshine that I shield my eyes from, the warmth of Merlin's hand in mine. But I clear such treacherous thoughts with a violent shake of my head, and regard my guest with a cool glare that rivals the chilly atmosphere of my confine.

Merlin chooses to ignore the look and smiles at me innocently from a wrinkled face. I narrow my eyes at his newest guise, the last time he visited we appeared the same age now he looks to be my grandfather. "Do you not like it?" he asks reading my thoughts, I hiss at the intrusion. He tugs at his long white beard, "I like it, and it would have been far too strange if I chose to appear ageless Y-"

"What brings you here?" I snap, cutting him off "I'm sure it is not to discuss the weather." The bitterness in my voice surprises even me, but I do not apologize. The façade of sanity I put on each time Merlin comes is draining, and I do not feel the desire to dance around formalities this time. His blue eyes sadden a bit as he regards me, but he looks past me into another room. As if striding comfortably in his own home, he walks past me into the resting room where, when I was first sent here, he managed to magically rig up a fire pit for the winter months (The smoke has no place to escape to, like me, I had thought in those first days; unlike me, the smoke disappeared magically). He sits down on the pile of cushions, furs, and blankets that I had assembled in front of the fire and stares at the cackling flames. Old memories tug at my mind, taunting me to remember as I stand behind him wishing he'd spit out his request and be gone. Merlin's presence no longer brings the comfort that it had in the early days; it is now the biting reminder of a freedom just out of my grasp.

"Do you remember the first tandem spell we learned?" he asks finally, without turning to look at me. The question cuts deep.

"You know very well that my part with the tandem all but extinguished when I came here". The air hangs heavy with what I do not add, we know now that my dealings with the tandem ended with my imprisonment for Merlin. Merlin's voice is soft when he adds "I did not ask for your assistance with a spell, I merely wondered if you remembered."

Another question that dances along the lines of things I would rather not pay heed to. My memories blur here, days and faces flow and twist into one another so that I can not tell them apart. But my first successful joint spell with Merlin is luckily not one of those, that day is still crisp in my mind. I close my eyes and see a home and field burning around Merlin and I. Red and gold flames singe my waist-long black hair, Merlin's eyes are blue and bright in contrast with the fire we have conjured. His voice in my ear warms me more than the fire, excited and raw as it is, "We did this."

Soundlessly I sink down next to him, my eyes still closed remembering the mayhem we created that day, and answer, "I remember". I fear opening my eyes and loosing this pleasant recollection, seeing as all the other enjoyable ones have warped themselves to create horrid nightmares and visions. We sit in silence and I open my eyes to compare our contrasting forms, Merlin's ridiculously aged self, and I locked into a body of an age I long ago surpassed.

"Why have you come Merlin?" I ask drawing each word out, "What do you seek?"

He turns to look at me then, his eyes full of hope and fear, wishes and remorse just like the day the world burned around us and forced us to make a choice. "For the past" he murmurs, "And for the future we will be a part of."

I laugh harshly "What worries do you have of such a trivial matter? The past is over and done with Merlin, and our futures are set as unending as they will be. You will continue to be the strongest wizard and I will go mad. Now I will madder still if you insist on talking of such gone times and contemplating what will be."

"You were not always like this" he responds, his voice still infuriatingly calm. Anger flashes through me and before I can stop myself I am spitting out "Perhaps you should try being trapped in an underwater grave, not glimpse the outside for gods know how long, while feeling the magic you worked a lifetime to obtain slip along with your mind and memories. Do that for a handful of centuries until you forget what a summer breeze feels like. How else do you expect me to be Merlin, while you truly live and I suffer something beyond death? I may not blame you for my imprisonment but I will not pity a wizard who still gets to see dusks and dawns." During my tirade, I feel my features begin to change: my eyes slit like those of a snake, fire burns at my fingertips, and my skin glows unnaturally as I continue.

"I can remember our first tandem spell being fire but the others are not there anymore, and what remains threatens to tear my mind apart." I find myself crying tears from eyes that no longer even look human, all too familiar pain shooting through my body while nightmares that I can not block tear through my mind. "Merlin" I wail grasping my skull in a futile effort to rid the images "I can't stop it!"

The present and past blur and I find myself standing next to Merlin our hands clutching to the point of breaking bone as the world spins and quakes and cracks about us. Immortality and the world have presented us with the greatest irony – by choosing to always be equal in power we have created an unnatural unbalance in our spell. We never noticed that immortals always had dead lovers, not ones who could match them spell for spell. A child Merlin tugs on my other hand and smiles like a cherub at me "They say the water talks to you like fire does to me! If I teach you to control fires can you do the same for me?" I hear my own voice above the shrieks and wails in this nightmare, laughing happily and commanding the flames that surround me to dance. I see Merlin and I as young adults pitting our elements against one another to create a pillar of fire and water that reaches to the sky as the forest we practice in crashes down. I remember a first kiss, awkward but long over due. I hear Merlin explaining a spell that would grant us immortality; we would never have to be apart. I see a blond little boy holding onto old Merlin's cloak as Merlin tells him he must find a woman in a lake; the boy meets my eyes and nods fearfully. I see people I do not know, names I do not recognize, and a table full of smile men. The noises and crowding memories heighten as I hear my voice from long ago screaming at Merlin to trap me before we destroyed the world, before one of us watched the other die. From water I came, to water I returned.

Finally the nightmare recedes and I feel my body returning to normal as I blink at the sunshine that the water above refracts into watery versions of it. Merlin hovers over me with clear blue eyes full of worry. I almost smile remembering how I used to cast water spells up into the sky just to sit under the blue-watery sheen the sunlight pouring through them created because it reminded me of his eyes.

"Yael" I can hear him saying "All is well Yael, it has ended."

I force a rueful smile "Yael once but no more. We made it so it would never end."

Ignoring the need to wretch, I sit up and notice that Merlin has discarded his old man garb for the version I last remember seeing in sunshine. "Forgive me" he is saying, reaching out to run scarred fingers through my dark hair. "Please forgive me"

I allow myself the luxury of doing the same to him, twisting my fingers through his silky brown curls as he leans towards me to rest his head in the space where my neck and shoulder meet. "For what Merlin? You made me strong, and I loved you. How were we to know that it would not be considered correct? This is the price of immortality."

This is the closest we have been in centuries, and I savor the moment until I slowly push his away. Merlin can not stay with me here, my prison drains his powers; also the longer he stays the harder it is for me to shake his presence once he is gone. He does not seem to remember any of this as he quickly regains the lost space by pulling me forward for our lips to meet. Once again I break away first, noticing for the first time a gleaming sword Merlin has discarded on the floor. Fragments of my nightmare reappear in my minds eye as I begin to cry again.

"Arthur" I say starting to sob. Merlin's eyes widen as he repeats the name quietly to himself. Names rush through my thoughts and I repeat them back to him close to babbling "Gawain, Lancelot, Guinevere…"

Still prattling names and things that will happen, Merlin gathers me into a close embrace as I remember why he said he had come to visit. He talked of the past: when we believed we could be together for all of eternity but were proven wrong, and he was forced to trap his lover in a lake rather than watch the world or me die. He talked of the future, and as always, Merlin's visits are not without consequence.

I cry harder, clutching him tighter as I see a cave and a spell similar to the one that trapped me underneath the lake being cast. I think of the first time Merlin kissed me, of fire and brimstone, the world crashing about us and not minding it at all. Recalling all this I sob out one last name.

"Nimue."


End file.
